Oops!
by WRTRD
Summary: A/U just before "After the Storm." Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

She should be exhausted, but she's as wired as she's ever been, in the best possible way. She's wide wake and he's out cold, face down on the very, very rumpled sheets. Tempted as she is to pull back the covers and check out his bare ass, with which she is now quite–but nowhere near enough–familiar, she instead contents herself with looking at the broad expanse of his back and his arousingly muscular right arm, which is half-wrapped around a pillow. His physical strength, not to mention his agility, had taken her by surprise. It had been thrilling. The sex had been thrilling and a hell of a lot more. Three rounds, each very different: explosive, tender, attentive, passionate, teasing, imaginative, slow, fast, giving, and unbelievably sensual. Sensual in every way, involving every one of her senses. It was extraordinary not just for a first time, but for any time. She'd never experienced anything like it, this all-encompassing, virtually perfect union of everything: body, mind, heart.

"I'm a goner," she whispers, not loud enough to wake him. "Done for." Despite how wired she is, she's craving coffee–and craving him, but he needs a little recovery time. She'll make them coffee and bring it in here. After all the coffees that he's brought her over the past few years, it's her turn. It won't be the last. In fact, she's already sure it will be forever: a lifetime of them bringing each other coffee in bed. She rolls over gently, and gets up as quietly as she can. From the doorway she glances back: he hasn't moved. Good.

She tiptoes through the living room, which is already in full light. They're only a few weeks away from the longest day of the year, and the sun had risen a couple of hours ago, at 5:30. The coffeemaker in the kitchen is calling to her, and while it's not as complex as the enormous one that Castle had given the precinct, it's very high-end and thus has a slew of options. Grateful for having mastered the intricacies of the break-room machine, she quickly gets this domestic one going.

She's standing next to it, reveling in all that had gone on since she walked in here from the rain last night, both the memories and the smell of the coffee intoxicating. Whether it's because of them or that Castle is so rich that his front door apparently unlocks silently, she's unaware that someone–someones, plural–has come into the loft until she hears a dramatic gasp from somewhere to her left.

"Katherine!" The dramatic gasper says, her jeweled hand hovering over her jeweled throat.

"Beckett?" the gasper's bedraggled granddaughter says, looking and sounding as if she's in pain. Kate has just enough wits at the moment to recognize a hangover, which she'd bet is a first for Alexis.

Two sets of blue eyes set beneath two sets of red eyebrows travel down her body, which prompts her to look down, too. Holy shit, she's naked. Naked in front of Castle's appalled mother and daughter. She grabs the only thing within reach, a small linen tea towel that's printed with a likeness of the Eiffel Tower, and tries to cover herself up, entirely unsuccessfully. Maybe if she'd had a Brazilian wax, but no.

"No wonder Dad didn't answer the phone," Alexis says, her cheeks suddenly flushed. Radiating rage, she turns sharply, goes up the stairs, and shuts her bedroom door behind her.

"Um," Kate says. "Uh. I. Um, we." Where is a teleporter when you need one? A magic carpet? A trap door that would open beneath her feet? Anything to get her the hell out of here.

Martha's expression has changed. She no longer looks surprised, but shocked. Kate's pretty shocked, too, and while she's struggling with something to say, or do, Martha takes a step toward her, and then another.

"Darling," she says. "My God, what happened to you?"

What happened? Surely it's obvious what happened: she and Martha's son had sex–a whole lot of very active, very noisy sex, in this very place. Well, not the kitchen, though that might have been next, on these gorgeous, sleek, granite counters. She's mortified. A griffin! That's what she needs. That mythical lion-eagle hybrid could swoop in here and take her away. She feels as if she's trying to scale an impossibly steep slope, scrabbling for a toehold though what she's really scrabbling for is words. "Castle, I mean Rick, and I, um."

Martha waves her hand. "No, no, what happened to _you_?" She moves until she's standing directly behind her. "Oh, dear Lord, this is terrible. You have to go to a doctor. Right now. You could have broken some ribs, too. Why did Richard–"

Belatedly, a bell goes off in her head. The bruises, that's what this is about. Bruises, abrasions, whatever, she hasn't looked. But considering the beating that Cole Maddox had given her less than 18 hours ago, she's sure that she's a mess. "No, no, Martha, you can't possibly think that Rick did–"

"Of course not. But he's obviously, well, _seen_ you. Why didn't he take you to the hospital?"

What can she say? That it had been a dark and stormy night, which is true, and that they'd been way too busy being busy for him to stop and turn on a light and check her for bruises? Which is also true. Cole Maddox had left her mind the instant that Castle had begun to kiss her, her back pressed hard against the door, and hadn't returned until now. The other thing that has returned is the pain: her back, shoulder, arms–everything hurts. Every bodily point of impact on that hotel roof is throbbing or tugging or stabbing, and she can't let it show, won't let it.

She's saved from having to explain, not by a bell but by the voice that overnight had become her favorite. "Coffee? Do I smell coffee? Beckett, you truly are the perfect woman. No, a goddess, you're a goddess. If only–mother?"

The last word is two octaves higher than the preceding ones. Castle's mouth opens and shuts several times, seemingly of its own accord, but at least he'd had the good sense to put on his underwear. She sees the panic in his eyes before he acts, and then he grabs the hem of his tee shirt, pulls it over his head, and thrusts it at her. "Here, here, put this on, here."

She's never been so grateful for a piece of clothing, even something as ordinary as a plain white tee shirt. Except now that she's slipped it on, she realizes that this one isn't ordinary. It smells of him, and because of what's gone on between them in the last several hours, it also smells of her. And sex, it smells of sex. It's an almost irresistible aphrodisiac, and to stave it off she has a death grip on the edge of the counter, willing her knees not to buckle and her nipples not to harden.

There is absolute silence in the kitchen, in this unlikely morning-after assembly, and yet she could swear that she hears the air crackling and the weird pinging of a pinball machine gone mad.

Someone has to go first, and it's Martha. "Richard," she says, looking sternly at her son. "What on earth were you thinking?" She puts her hand up to indicate that he shouldn't answer, but he wasn't about to anyway. "I'm not talking about, you know," she rolls her eyes slightly, and rotates her hand. "You're consenting adults for God's sake, and I don't know why it took you so long. But Richard, look at her. She's seriously injured. I don't know what the hell happened to her yesterday–." She breaks off to look at Kate. "It was yesterday, I assume? Everything looks very recent."

She nods and hunches her shoulders.

"But how could you not have insisted that she go to the emergency room?"

"The emergency room?" Castle sounds simultaneously chagrined, angry, and confused. And then he turns from looking at Martha to looking at Kate. He touches a fingertip to her elbow, which is just visible beneath the edge of a short, baggy sleeve. She tries not to wince, but she does. And then he, looking directly into her eyes, does the same. "Mother," he says, "please excuse us." He takes Kate by the hand and draws her through the living room.

As soon as they're in his bedroom he slowly pulls the shirt over her head and looks at her in horror. "Jesus Christ, Kate. Why didn't you say something? What's the matter with me? How didn't I see this? Oh, Jesus."

"Castle, ssh, ssh. Castle, stop beating yourself up. I'm beat up enough for both of us."

"This isn't funny, Kate. I can't believe this. Have you seen these cuts and welts and slashes and–. Jesus. What have you been through? What did he do?"

"Maddox and I were in a fight. It doesn't matter."

"Are you crazy? Of course it matters. Wait, wait, wait. At the door last night you said, 'He got away.' Was that it? That he got away and you didn't care. And you said 'I almost died,' didn't you? What's the matter with me? You almost died?"

And so she tells him everything, and when she's done he sits on the edge of the bed and cries, never letting go of her hand.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

"Castle," she says, sitting next to him on the bed, her hand on his thigh. He's no longer weeping, but he still looks anguished. "Please, you have to stop apologizing. We were both at fault."

"We were both at fault in the argument we had in your apartment, but I'm to blame for not stopping you last night when you told me that you almost died."

"No, listen, listen." Her voice is low, her breath soft against his skin. "I came here hellbent on saying I was sorry, hellbent on telling you how much I wanted you. I was pretty much unstoppable, you know, when I launched myself at you and kissed you. And you did try to stop me at first, held me away. But your face, Castle, your face. There was so much hurt there and I couldn't bear it. I had to touch your lips and–"

"And that was it. That undid me. And when I saw your scar–the bullet, where the bullet hit you. I don't know, everything just fell away then. I couldn't think about anything but you, and nothing else mattered."

"Exactly," she says, leaning against his shoulder and kissing his jaw.

"But I undressed you, Kate. I peeled everything off you. And look–" he points to the raw, purple splotch that spreads across her hipbone, but doesn't dare touch it. "Why didn't I see this? Any of this?"

"It was dark, Castle. _Dark_. And all the bruises probably look much worse, more vivid, today then they did yesterday. We were frantic last night, trying to make up for so much. For all you knew 'I almost died' meant that Maddox took a shot at me and missed. How could you have known that he threw me down over and over and over and left me hanging from a roof? If we'd been sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee instead of devouring each other in here? I'd have been ashamed to tell you what he did, that he got the better of me despite all my training."

He turns towards her and takes her face in his hands. "You're in pain now, aren't you? Physical pain. Tell me."

She nods, and tilts her head into his right palm.

"Agonizing?"

"Not agonizing."

"But serious pain."

"Yes."

"With all the things we did to each other last night, what I did, you never said–. I didn't–. Did I hurt you?" He hears his voice crack. He's going to cry again.

"No. No, you didn't. I was so far gone that I didn't feel anything but a rush of happiness and lust and excitement and–." She'd almost said "love," but held it back. Maybe she shouldn't have. "And I still do. But I also hurt, just about everywhere. I think if I take some aspirin and a long shower it'll help."

"Take a long shower. I'll take it with you, but then we're going to the ER."

"No."

"Kate–"

"I don't want to explain what happened to me. I don't want it on a record somewhere. I'm not a cop any more, Castle."

"Then I'll take you to my doctor."

"By the time you get an appointment, I'll be fine."

"I'll get you an appointment for today. That's one of the perks of having a lot of money. Which also buys you discretion." He holds her look for a long time. "Okay?"

"Okay."

A few minutes later, they're in the Taj Mahal of showers. She's learned how soft his hands are, but his tenderness when he washes her back and the backs of her legs almost brings her to tears. She can hear the sharp intake of his breath when he addresses each scrape, welt, cut, or bruise. Even over the noise of the water she can hear him whisper angrily, "I will fucking kill this guy."

It's only when she's wrapped up in the fluffiest towel she's ever encountered that she remembers her clothes, which are still on the bedroom floor where Castle dropped them last night, and must also be wet. She pokes her head out of the bathroom door and sees him on the phone.

"Yes, ten o'clock. That's great. Thanks again. I owe you."

"Castle?"

"Good news. Doctor Bauer can see you in–" he checks his watch. "An hour and a half."

"My clothes. I'm sorry. They're in a soggy heap on your floor."

"I'll put them in the dryer while you're drying your hair," he assures her. "And if they're wrinkled, I'll iron them."

"You can iron?"

"I learned when I was twelve and my mother was in summer stock. It gave me an excuse to go in the chorus girls' dressing room."

"I bet it did."

He stops suddenly, her pants draped over his arm, and pivots towards her. "Wait a minute. My mother. Why is my mother here? She's supposed to be in the Hamptons. And she's usually still in bed at this hour."

Oh, God. Her brain had ceded to her body last night, and hasn't recovered. How can it when Castle is standing only inches away from her wearing nothing but a towel, his skin glowing, a few drops of water shimmering on his deltoids? She has to tell him, almost choking. "Not just Martha."

"What?"

"It's not just Martha who's here. Alexis."

"Alexis? No, she won't be home for hours. She and all her friends are celebrating graduation. She'll probably drag herself through the door at noon and go to bed."

She wishes that she'd brought the coffee in here, not left it in the kitchen where it must be cold and undrinkable by now. She needs strength to do what she has to do, but she'll have to gut it out caffeine-free. "Castle," she says, sitting on the bed again and patting the spot next to her. "Come here. I've really screwed things up with your daughter." All she sees in his eyes now is confusion. "Please, sit down with me."

He does sit down, hard. "I don't understand."

She laces her fingers through his as if to anchor him to her. What if he bolts? His daughter is the most important person in his life, and she, Katherine Lovesick Idiot Houghton Beckett, may have just written herself out of it. "When I woke up a while ago–" a while ago? it feels like a year–"I decided to make us coffee. Because, you know, coffee is our–." Maybe it's suddenly coffee was, not is. Maybe she and Castle are a were before they've had a chance to be an are. "I, um, went out to the kitchen not even thinking to put some clothes on. Not thinking at all, except about you." Maybe they're done now. Maybe last night was the end of everything, instead of the beginning. She's working hard not to tremble. "Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have remembered–again, if I'd been thinking, which I wasn't–that we were alone here. So anyway, I was waiting for the coffee to brew and didn't even hear the front door open and then there they were. Your mother. And Alexis. They both looked stunned. Shocked, really, not that I blame them. And they stared at me. That was when I realized that I was naked." She comes to a desperate halt. Surely he'll say something now.

He turns his head a fraction of an inch and blinks. She feels as if she's watching him in slow-motion.

"And?" he asks, at last.

"And?"

"And what happened?"

Oh, shit. There's no way she's going to tell him what Alexis said, her one furious sentence. _No wonder Dad didn't answer the phone._ She might as well throw acid in his face. "Alexis looked furious and went to her room. I don't blame her."

"Alexis and my mother came home together?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I mean, I guess you'll have to ask Martha."

"You must have an idea. You're a detective."

She makes the leap, or part of one. "I think maybe Alexis got a little drunk at the party. And maybe she–I don't know, Castle."

He looks at his feet, which at the moment is preferable to him looking at her. "Drunk?" he directs his question to the floor. The air is heavy. She feels as if something is pressing down on her chest.

"Maybe. I saw her for only a few seconds, but she had, a, uh, hungover look. What kid doesn't go a tiny bit wild at a post-graduation party? Not wild, wild. Not Alexis. But a little." For the second time this morning she wishes that something would swallow her whole, or vaporize her. She's going to leave the detecting to him.

"Maybe she called my mother? Why didn't she call me?"

B-I-N-G-O. She's not saying a word.

He grabs his phone from his back pocket and scrolls through missed calls. "Oh, my God, she called me four times." He pauses. "And left me four voicemails." As he clicks on each one, beginning with the oldest, rapidly shifting emotions move across his face. He puts down the phone, but it's a least a minute before he speaks again. "You were right. Party got a little out of hand and she wanted me to pick her up. Finally called my mother."

"I'm sorry, Castle. I'm so sorry." Wasn't that precisely what she'd said when she'd come through the door and kissed him? "This is totally my fault."

"What's your fault? I'm her father. I'm a parent. It's my job to leave my phone on, have it on me, in case she needs me." He shakes his head. Another silence. "But why was she mad at you? You didn't do anything."

Is he crazy? "Really?"

"You're not responsible for my phone. I left it in the living room and I didn't hear it. From in here." He stares at the bed.

"It's not that, Castle. It's that she found me naked. In her house. Where she lives. And even with a hangover she could figure out why."

"I'm going to go talk to her."

"Let her be, for right now. I'm sure she's asleep. Talk to her later." When I'm not here, she doesn't say. "I'll get dressed, go to your doctor, and get out of your hair."

"Kate, you're not in my hair. I'm just–. You're right, she must be asleep." He gets to his feet, puts on his robe, and picks up the rest of her clothes from the floor. "I'm going to put these in the dryer. And talk to my mother."

He's already out the door. Martha will tell him what Alexis said.

If it were possible to hear a heart sink, she'd have woken the dead.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you so much for your enthusiasm for this little story. I was happily surprised to see how many of you, like me, wondered why Beckett's injuries were completely ignored in "Always" and "After the Storm." Oh, and as you will have inferred, this isn't a 2-shot after all!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

As he strides through the living room he sees his mother sitting at the kitchen island with her coffee and reading the _Times_. "Just drying Kate's clothes before we go to Jerry Bauer," he says over his shoulder. "She got soaked on the way over here last night."

Once he starts the machine he returns, pours himself a cup of caffeinated courage, and sits on a stool opposite his mother.

"It's about time," she says, looking over the top of her glasses. "I'm referring to the doctor's appointment, not Katherine's clothes."

"Point taken, Mother. She must really be in pain to have agreed to go."

His mother doesn't respond, but she's looking at him the way a lepidopterist looks at a butterfly that she's about to pin to a board. He tries not to squirm.

"Kate's mortified about having been out here, um–." What should he say? Naked? Nude? Without a stitch? Bare? Nothing seems right.

"Understood," his mother says drily. "But she has a beautiful body, apart from the temporary damage. At least I hope it's temporary. She has no reason to be embarrassed."

Beautiful body? That doesn't begin to cover it. Or uncover it. Oh, God, what's the matter with him? He briefly closes his eyes, for a variety of reasons. "The issue is that she was out here with no clothes on when you and Alexis got home. She had no idea you were coming. She's especially upset about Alexis."

"Mmhmm."

She's not making this easy for him. "She said, 'I've really screwed things up with your daughter' and that Alexis looked furious and went to her room, for which she didn't blame her. She also said, not judgmentally, that she thought that Alexis might have had too much to drink at the post-graduation party. So I thought, well, why didn't she call me? And then I checked my phone and found the four voicemails." He clears his throat and uncomfortably contemplates his coffee. "Kate didn't screw things up, I did. I should have had the phone on me."

"It would have been difficult to have the phone on you in the circumstances, wouldn't you say?"

He looks up and sees the arched eyebrow that always spelled trouble for him when he was a kid. "Geez, Mother."

"Don't be so prudish, darling."

"I'm not–" He stops to gather his thoughts, such as they are, and sighs. "I'm sorry that you had to go get Alexis."

"And I'm sorry that she was so rude to Katherine."

If a brain can come to a screeching halt, his does. And when it takes off again, it's goes from zero to a hundred in a nanosecond. He suspected that Kate hadn't told him everything a few minutes ago. There was something a little off in her story, a little hesitancy. Alexis looked furious when she saw her and went to her room, and Kate couldn't blame her? That's not enough for his mother to apologize for Alexis being rude. There's more to it. Something's missing. He looks levelly at his mother.

"What did Alexis say to her?"

He knows that his mother adores her only grandchild, but she also doesn't tolerate impoliteness. Furthermore, he's sure that despite all the bumps, oil slicks, potholes, rocks, and ice on the road leading up to last night, his mother is rooting for him and Kate. And now, putting her coffee down, she looks levelly back at him.

"She gave her a look that could set snow on fire, said, 'No wonder Dad didn't answer the phone,' took off for the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door."

His stomach lurches, but he swallows hard, and keeps going. "Did you say anything to her? Go to her room?"

She shakes her head vigorously. "No. As far as I was concerned what was most important was Katherine's obvious injuries. I was just speaking to her about them when you burst in here, and that was that."

"Did you go after Kate and I left?"

That gets another head shake. "No. I think by now Alexis is asleep. I hope so."

"I'm going to go talk to her."

His mother reaches across the island and puts a restraining hand on his arm. "Let her be for now, Richard. You can do that later. Right now you have to get ready to take Katherine to the doctor. Finish your coffee and then go check her clothes. As for me? I'm in need of a nap. It's been a hell of a day and it's not even nine o'clock." She pushes her stool away, comes around to him, and kisses the top of his head. "Take it easy, sweetheart." In a colorful and perfumed cloud, she billows quietly up stairs.

Doing as his mother told him, he takes a few minutes to finish his coffee. Then he collects the clothes–which are dry and need only a touch-up with the iron–and presses out the remaining wrinkles. He puts her things on two hangers, gets Kate a cup of coffee, and heads back to their bedroom.

He stops in the middle of the living-room carpet. Their bedroom? He's already thinking of it as their bedroom? His mind flashes back on the excruciating fight that they'd had last year in her apartment, shortly before she got shot. He'd told her, "I'm the guy who says we can move that rubber tree plant. But you know what, Beckett? I don't think we're gonna win this." He'd been so uncharacteristically pessimistic after that, for a long time. And now? Hope has rushed back in. No matter what. He takes another minute before completing the short walk to the(ir) room.

They get to the doctor's office fifteen minutes ahead of time. She's a little restless in the waiting room, but fills out the necessary forms and gives them to the woman at the front desk. When her name is called on the dot of ten, she rises from her chair, but doesn't move forward.

"Kate?"

"Yeah."

"You all right?"

"Um."

"Would you like me to come in with you?"

She drops her chin and whispers, "Yes, please."

He presses his palm between her shoulder blades. "You got this, and I got you," he says.

When they cross the threshold into the doctor's office he gives Bauer a hug. "Jerry, great to see you. Kate, this is Jerry Bauer, my friend since kindergarten and my doctor for the last ten years. Jerry, this is Kate Beckett, who could use your ministrations."

"Pleased to meet you," Jerry says, shaking her hand, "though I'm sorry it's for a professional visit. Rick and I will step out so you can undress and put on the haute-couture paper robe there on the end of the examining table."

Maybe it's his soothing voice, or maybe it's the fact that he and Castle go back so far, but she begins to feel more at ease. Castle must have been adorable as a five-year-old. Warmed by that vision, and wrapped in the rustling robe, she perches on the table and waits for the men to return.

"Rick says that you'd like him to be here while I take a look at you, is that right?"

"Yes. Sorry, that must seem infantile."

"Not at all. He told me a bit about what happened to you, but I'd like you to give me some details. And nothing leaves this room, I promise."

The second telling is not as hard as the first, because it's not to someone she lo–. Oh hell, yes, someone she loves. There. She's not telling the story to someone she loves who feels ridiculously guilty for what happened, as if he could have prevented it. Doctor Bauer–Jerry, he insists–is calm and very, very smart. He asks all the right questions.

"Well, Kate," he says, examination complete, "you're in fantastic physical condition, which saved you a lot to grief, but some of your cuts are serious and deep, and we'll have to watch for infection. I'm surprised that you didn't dislocate your shoulder. It must hurt like hell, though, doesn't it?"

"Pretty much."

"I'll give you something to help the pain, and antibiotic ointment for the cuts. Rick, you can apply it to the places on her back that she can't reach?"

He nods. He'd say, "yes" but he doesn't trust himself to formulate even one syllable without breaking down.

"I also want to do a chest X-ray because I'm concerned about a couple of your ribs."

Not long after Jerry is showing both of them the X-rays. "As I suspected, this rib here is cracked, but luckily it's only one. And as you know, there's nothing to be done about that. We don't tape them up any more. This will just have to heal on its own." He turns to Rick. "Remember that obnoxious kid David in second grade? Fell off the jungle gym and broke a rib? He pulled up his shirt to show us how he'd been taped up. You said it was too bad they didn't put some on his mouth."

That makes her laugh. "Very compassionate, Castle," she says.

"Believe me, you'd have agreed."

Later, when they're waiting for the elevator, he asks, "Are you hungry? I'm starving."

"Me, too."

"Good. Let's go back to the loft and I'll make you the best comfort-food brunch of all time."

"Castle, no. I have to go home. I'll pick up the prescriptions at my pharmacy and get something at the deli and go to bed." The instant she says it, she regrets it. He looks shattered. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings. I just think it would be better if I weren't at the loft for a bit. Until, you know, Alexis is–." Is what? Not actually plotting to kill her? She needs to lighten this up for him. "Until Alexis has recovered from the trauma of seeing me wander around your apartment naked." Which could be never.

The elevator carries them down nine stories, and he doesn't say a word; they cross the marble floor of the lobby, and he remains silent. He hails a taxi and guides her in, gives her address to the driver, and returns to his unnaturally soundless state. But he's holding her hand the whole time, and doesn't let go until they're on the sidewalk in front of her building. "You go up. I'll get your prescriptions and something for us to eat." Before she can protest, he's halfway across the street. With a deep sigh, she goes inside.

In her own bathroom, which now seems very small, she drops her clothes into the hamper and puts on a pair of bikini panties and a soft, oversized tee shirt. She foregoes the bra because the bottom edge puts pressure on the cracked rib. She's just finished making coffee when Castle rings her doorbell downstairs and she buzzes him in.

"Something for us to eat" is, of course, enough for a platoon. "I didn't know what you felt like," he says, unpacking everything and putting it on the table.

"Do you remember the other time you brought me a whole lot of food and said the exact same thing?"

He shakes his head.

"You brought a huge bag to my desk. It was at the end of the Dick Coonan case." Something about the unbidden memory melts her, but Castle is still so subdued. She wants to get him out of wherever he is. "It was different, though. That was before I knew what you taste like." She grabs him by the front of his shirt and gives him a passionate kiss that she hopes will bring him back.

It takes a while for him to respond, but whatever unseen barrier was there gives way, and he kisses her just as fervently. His hands have begun to wander under her shirt, but when his fingers brush over one of the deeper cuts, he quickly pulls away. "I'm sorry. Oh, God. That must have hurt."

"Didn't hurt, Castle." Okay, slight fib, but he needn't know it. "I have to ask you something."

He doesn't reply.

"It's important."

"Oh. Okay."

She props her uninjured hip against the counter. "When you brought me food the other time, it was because you felt guilty. You felt as if everything were your fault, and it wasn't. I can't think what's happened in the last couple of hours to make you feel that way, but you're so quiet, and you look, I don't know, contrite? As if you feel that something's your fault and you have to apologize. I don't think it's about Maddox, because we covered that pretty well. It's something else, more recent."

She touches the corner of his lip, just as she had last night. "Am I right?"

They're only inches apart, and because she's barefoot his Adam's apple is in her sightline. Seeing it move as he gulps almost does her in.

"Alexis," he says.

"Alexis?"

"You said she just looked angry when she saw you in the kitchen this morning. You didn't tell me how rude she was to you."

"Castle–"

"My mother told me that Alexis said, 'No wonder Dad didn't answer the phone'."

Dammit, that's exactly what she'd been afraid of. "That's on me, Castle."

"No, it's not. I apologize for myself and for my daughter."

"Not necessary."

"It is. And it's necessary for her to say so, to you. And before Monday, when she and my mother leave for Europe."

Martha and Alexis going away? _Ohhhh._

 **A/N** Thank you again for your great good cheer and follows and reviews. Here's a shout out to all the guests whom I cannot thank any other way: I am very grateful to you.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

He'd fed them both; made sure that Kate took her painkillers; wrapped up all the leftovers and put the perishables in her fridge, and kissed her good night. Afternoon, kissed her good afternoon. Kissing her good night would happen, well, tonight, either in her bed or his.

In the cab on the way home he alternately frets and seethes. The former is over what he's going to say to Alexis; the latter is directed at himself (he should have been tougher on her) and at Alexis (how dare she speak to Kate that way?). Fretting and seething gets him nothing but the beginning of a headache.

When he arrives at home the loft is quiet. He tiptoes halfway up the stairs so that he can see the doors to his mother's room as well as to Alexis's: both are closed. Fine, he'll wait.

At first he futzes around in the kitchen so that he can keep an eye on the second floor, but after half an hour of that he retreats to his office and sits in his chair, feet on his desk. His hearing is normal except when it comes to his daughter: where she's concerned he has the ears of a moth. He used to think that he had the ears of a bat, but he'd recently learned that moths have the best hearing of any creature on earth. He has the ears of a moth. If Alexis flutters an eyelash, he hears it from a hundred yards. Do moths have eyelashes? He should stop thinking about that and start thinking what approach to take with his daughter.

Just as that thought begins to germinate, he hears her approach. Not approach, exactly, but come somewhat tentatively down the stairs. She must not know he's there, because she makes no attempt to skip the squeaky step. He's more than halfway through the living room by the time she's all the way down.

"Alexis?"

She jumps. "Dad?"

"You look as if you could use some coffee." Not, hi, sweetheart, how was the party? Not, I'm so sorry I missed your call–your four calls–last night. Instead, just an expressionless, you look as if you could use some coffee.

Her already pale complexion grows even paler.

They're both in the kitchen now, in some odd parent-child standoff that is completely alien to him. He makes the first move, but not towards her. Instead, he gets the coffee beans from the cabinet, measures some into the grinder, processes it–she's behind him, but he can picture her wincing at the sound–and starts the coffee. From another cabinet he chooses two mugs, and from a third he gets a bottle of aspirin and shakes two tablets from it. His newly-minted valedictorian is still silent. So is he.

When he turns around he sees that she's sitting at the island in the exact spot his mother had occupied earlier today. He slides the coffee, aspirin, and a glass of water across the countertop. "Here."

"You look seriously ticked off, Dad," she says sullenly.

"I am."

"I know I had too much to drink, but I've never done it before."

"I know that."

"It was a graduation celebration."

"Mmhmm."

"I didn't think you'd be this mad."

He's letting that pass. See where she goes next. It doesn't take long.

"I'm mad, too, you know. I called you like, a million times, and you didn't pick up. I had to get Gram."

"I've already apologized to her."

A more unsettling silence settles on them, but he's better at the waiting game than she is, and he'll wait some more.

"Okay," she says at last, before swallowing the aspirin with a few gulps of water, and chasing them with some coffee. He knows that she's stalling. Is she expecting an apology from him? She is, foremost, ignoring the elephant in the room. Not ignoring it so much as refusing to address it, which isn't quite the same thing.

The elephant is, of course, the woman with whom he has fallen madly and forever in love. He has mentally compared Kate Beckett to many things over the last few years, and a great many more in the last few hours. He has likened her to any number of animals–a jaguar, a bear, a terrier, a variety of birds–but never an elephant. There's nothing pachydermal about her, though she does have an elephantine memory.

He can tell that Alexis is trying to stare him down, but it won't work. Not this time. Finally, she blinks. "I can't believe it, Dad. After everything she did to you, the way she's treated you, you slept with her. In our apartment. And then you let her wander around naked as if she lived here, except that none of us who actually does live here ever does that. And when I call you at night to ask you to do something that's really, really important you don't because you're–"

His hand goes up like a shot, palm out. "You might want to stop. Right there. Or maybe you don't want to stop, but I want you to, and I'm urging you not to finish that sentence." He takes a very deep breath, which has no calming effect but does fuel his resolve. "I will apologize for one thing, which was not answering the phone because I left it in another room. But that's all. And you weren't left to cope on your own, because you also have your grandmother. But there's a far more important issue here. Who I sleep with is none of your business; it's no one's business. It's been pretty obvious to you for a long time how I feel about Detective Beckett. About Kate. We've had a difficult time of it for a lot of reasons. She likes to say it's complicated, and to a certain extent it is. But it's also simple. How I feel about her is simple. Very, very deep, but simple. But that's also not strictly the issue. For me the simple issue, at the moment, is that you were rude to her. You may be leaving the DMZ between childhood and adulthood, but even if you were eight rather than eighteen I'd be angry at how you treated her. She is a guest here. More than a guest."

"Dad, she was standing here naked. With this idiotic expression and, and sex hair."

"Alexis!"

"It's true, Dad."

He rubs his hand down his face, trying to scrub away the image of his daughter finding his–his what? his lover? what is his word for her now?–here. "She had no idea that you were coming home. I told her that Gram was in the Hamptons and that you wouldn't be back until lunchtime. I didn't _let_ her, as you put it, wander around. She was free to do that, and she never would have had she known, anticipated, that you'd come in the door. I don't want to discuss that. It's not a point of discussion. What is is that you treated her abominably–"

"So she went crying to you."

"She did exactly the opposite. She said she embarrassed you and herself. All she said was that you seemed angry and went to your room and that she didn't blame you. She was very sympathetic to you. I'm not."

At some point in this conversation/confrontation/argument/showdown, he'd stood up, but it's only now that he's aware of it. He puts his hands flat on the countertop as if something that solid might shore him up. "I asked Gram what happened, and I asked her to tell me exactly. And she did. So I expect you to apologize to Detective Beckett, just as I'd expect you to apologize to anyone you were rude to under this roof."

After a moment his daughter, looking simultaneously defiant and resigned, pushes herself away and slips off the stool. "Fine. I'll apologize. By the time Gram and I get back from Europe she probably won't be around any more, anyway. I'm going to take a shower and go shopping with Amanda."

He watches her ascend the stairs, the overhead light making her hair gleam like fire, and feels as if he's been stabbed in the heart with an icicle.

 **A/N** I'm sorry that this chapter is shor, but I'm going to be on the road for a few days and I didn't want to wait until the middle of next week to post something. Thank you all and have a good weekend.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

When she wakes up in a sweat, the terrible taste in her mouth makes her wonder if she'd been licking the inside of a tin can while she was asleep. What time is it, anyway? She doesn't really remember getting into bed, but she must have. Unless she keeled over while eating and Castle carried her in here. That could be. He'd picked her up once last night in his loft as if she were as light as a cornstalk; she has a strong physical memory of it, the mass of just one arm supporting her entire body. My God, it was erotic. At one point a muscle in his forearm twitched right against her tailbone, like a jolt of electricity without the pain, and she thought she might come right there.

"No wonder I'm sweating," she says to the ceiling of the empty, darkish room. The curtains are drawn; Castle did that. She thinks he might have said "sweet dreams" as he closed them. Oh, her dreams had been more than sweet. She's just conscious of her hand moving to her lips, and she finds that she's smiling, but when she sits up she feels slightly light-headed, so she lies back down and rolls her tongue around her mouth. Totally tin can. Disgusting.

Desperate to brush her teeth, she gets gingerly out of bed. In the bathroom mirror she catches sight of an enormous, angry bruise on her arm, so she pulls off her jersey and with a sharp intake of breath begins to catalogue as much of the damage to her body as she can see. It really does look worse than it feels, thanks to the pain killer she's taken, but she's already thinking about stopping. The slight dizziness and the metallic taste are obviously side effects, and to her they're worse than actual pain. Actual pain is something she can manage, but even toothpaste, dental floss, and a double dose of mouthwash aren't enough to banish the revolting taste. Coffee? That could be the answer. It's the answer to a lot of things.

Partway to the kitchen she notices that the sun is in the wrong place for early morning. Oh, it's not shortly after sunrise, it's getting on for sunset. She squints at the clock on the stove. Huh. Seven o'clock. Doesn't matter, she needs coffee. What time had Castle put her to bed? She shakes her head to jar lose some memories. Must have been early afternoon. They'd gone to his doctor. They'd come here and had something to eat. Then he went home to do something. What? She's definitely jettisoning the painkiller.

The loud jangle of the doorbell in the outer lobby is so startling that she almost barks into the intercom."Who is it?"

"Castle."

"Of course it is. Of course. Her heart flips one direction, her stomach another. He's here. She presses the buzzer to let him in. By the time she reaches her front door he's already knocking on it.

"Hi," she says. She wishes her mouth didn't taste like cat food, but she can't hold back. The instant he's over the threshold she kisses him.

"Wow," he says afterwards, a little short of breath.

"I'm sorry. That must have been awful."

"Awful? Are you kidding?"

"I mean because that must have been like kissing Purina Fancy Feast."

"Cat food?"

" 's the pain killer. Does vile things to my mouth."

"Nope. You taste minty."

"Oh. Okay."

"And by the way, this may be the best kitchen-door greeting I've ever had. Especially the topless part."

"Topless?" She looks down. "Oh, my God. I'm naked? Again? Where's my brain?"

"Well," he says, looking hungrily at her and pushing her hair off her forehead, "you did say that we fucked our br–"

She clamps her hand over his mouth. "Sshh."

"Bfshtrh." He pulls her hand away and kisses her palm. "But it's the truth."

"Fine. My point is that this is the second time today that I've wandered around starkers without being aware of it." She looks down again. "At least this time I have on panties."

"Very sexy panties. Even sexier if they're off."

His eyes are wide as he reached out to her, and she grabs him by the wrist. "Castle, wait." She drops his hand and briefly massages her temple. "The first time was at your place–oh, shit, that's why you went home, isn't it? This pain killer is messing up my recall. Alexis saw me naked and you went back to talk to her, didn't you?"

She may be befuddled, but she has no trouble identifying the change in the air and in Castle. The cheerful, flirty man who walked in a minute ago is gone, and a thoroughly dejected one has taken his place. "What happened?"

"Not much."

"You may have inherited some of your mother's acting genes, but you're a terrible liar. At least right now you are. Did you speak with Alexis?"

He sighs so deeply that she half expects him to deflate and crumple onto the floor like a punctured balloon at a kid's party. "Yes."

"And?"

"And I asked her to apologize."

"To who? Whom."

He looks sideways.

"To me, right?"

"Of course to you."

"Not necessary, Castle. I said that before. I think I did. If I didn't, I should have."

He sighs again, but a moment later his jaw sets. "She should, and she will. She's my daughter. I did not bring her up to behave as she did."

The short, no-argument sentences match his body language. She fights back a sigh of her own.

"Is she at home?"

"No, shopping with her friend Amanda. Last-minute things for her trip, I guess. She texted me that they're going out to the movies later. She won't be back until eleven." He runs the toe of his sneaker back and forth along the edge of one floorboard; although he's staring at the floor she can see that he's even more morose now. It's some time before he speaks again. "I thought about telling her to give me back her credit card, but I figured she'd just borrow money from Amanda, and I don't want anyone else dragged into this, especially another eighteen-year-old girl."

Something's not right, and she knows what it is. Not specifically, but generally. There's trouble between Castle and his daughter, and she's the cause. Something's scratching to get out of her brain. Damn this pain killer. There's more that he's not telling her. Didn't that happen before? She's sure it did, after Alexis saw her in the kitchen.

"Castle?" she asks tentatively. "Castle." Now she's decisive. "This isn't the whole story. There's more to this, this thing–this problem–with Alexis than you're letting on." She must have said something a lot worse than "No wonder Dad didn't answer the phone." But what?

It's been well over a minute, and he still hasn't responded. To hell with the pain killer and the pain–physical and emotional–and the restraint. She has been too restrained with Castle for far too long, and she's ashamed of it. She's always thought that she's a brave person, but now that she forces herself to examine that self-assessment, she has to admit that her courage extends almost exclusively to her professional life. In her personal life? With the exception of her relationship with her father, which she rebuilt with great care after he sobered up, she displays very little courage. She doesn't dare let anyone in, and yet suddenly here she is, standing inches away from the one person who has crept under her skin, and burrowed into her heart and her mind, and she knows–knows–that he's settled there permanently. The instant she acknowledges it she feels strong and brave and full of joy and light. She wonders if this is how someone who has been imprisoned for a long time feels on receiving a pardon, and finally steps outside into freedom. She's free. She throws her arms around Castle and hugs him as hard as she can.

"Kate?"

"Mmmm." She hugs him again, and this time presses her lips to his ear.

"Kate?"

"I'm yours," she whispers against his neck.

"What?"

She feels him trying to push her back, presumably so that he can see her, but she's having none of that. "I said, 'I'm yours'." She moves her head to the right and kisses him with all the force that she'd used in her hug.

When she runs out of air she tilts her face back and sees his astonishment. "I'm yours," she says for the third time, in case it hasn't fully registered with him. "Are you mine? Because if so, I need to fix this. If you think Alexis should apologize to me, fine, but I'll apologize to her. If we're a we, you and I, if we're in this–and I am, all the way, forever, understand?–then I will do whatever I can to make Alexis not resent me. Anything, okay? But you have to come clean with me, now, and not while she's in France or Italy. Because whatever this unseen beast is that's eating you up? I want it out, and you know why? Because I'm the only one who gets to eat you up."

The laugh moves through him and ripples onto her skin. "Eat me up, huh?"

"Yes. And I'm very, very hungry." Shouldn't they be talking about Alexis? Maybe, but not while he's looking at her this way. Her impulse control just went out the metaphorical window; he'd opened it as well as the real one next to her bed. Bed is where she wants to be. Right now. "Starving. And the only thing that's going to fill me up is you."

He laughs again.

"I love to eat in bed, Castle."

"Oh, my God, stop."

"You want me to stop?"

"No."

"Good. Come with me."

An hour later, sprawled across her bed, she's considerably sweatier than she had been when she'd woken up from her nap, but this time it's not a dream that's affecting her, it's the real thing. Real deal. Real man. Real love. What he does to her is indescribable, at least for now. She can't codify it or sort it out yet. She just revels in it. "Gotta take a bath," she says, poking his calf with her toe.

"Mmph."

She doesn't yet know him well enough to interpret that. "Do you want to join me?"

"Glf."

She really, really wants him to get in the tub with her, but he hasn't moved, so she rolls over, runs her tongue from his nipple to three inches below the bellybutton and gets to her feet.

The water has been running maybe twenty seconds when he walks into the bathroom. "Oh, good," he says, his hand lying lightly on her shoulder. "You have a small tub."

"Probably a quarter the size of yours. I'm surprised you're willing to try it."

"Not at all. It's perfect. You'll have to lie on top of me. Perfect."

It is. They float, mentally and physically, and he washes her back as gently as he had this morning in his 80 square-foot shower.

"Time to get dressed," she says at last, much as she'd like to lie here forever.

"Why?" he asks, spreading his hand across her stomach. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Damn right we are. Your house. To see your daughter."

 **A/N** I'm sorry that it took so long to do this chapter; I had no time. Will write the next one much, much more quickly. For those who celebrate Christmas, I hope it is full of joy. For those who don't, I hope that you find joy in the arrival and promise of a new season.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

They're on the way back to the loft. In an unusual reversal–typically when they're driving somewhere it's in her cop car, not his Mercedes or Ferrari–he's at the wheel and she's in the luxuriously comfy passenger seat. She feels as if she's inside a buttery cocoon, and if she weren't so nervous, she'd fall asleep.

After they'd gotten dressed, half an hour ago, she'd insisted that they sit down on her sofa and talk. She'd had to force the truth from him: he'd finally given in and told her what Alexis had said. She'd thought that she'd been well braced for it, but she hadn't.

 _By the time Gram and I get back from Europe she probably won't be around any more, anyway._

She hadn't meant to turn away when he'd repeated that metaphorical slap to the face, but she had, just for a moment. She'd moved her head towards the window and seen him reflected there. She'd wondered if it had hurt him as much to tell her as it had hurt her to hear it, and knew that it had.

The girl really does hate her, despite Castle's insistence that she doesn't. She'd tried to put herself in Alexis's shoes, inside her adolescent brain, to understand her anger and her distrust. To a considerable extent, she does. Alexis is wildly protective of her father. She has witnessed the vicissitudes of their relationship, and she's convinced that Kate puts Castle in danger. The fact that he's an adult and had chosen to work in a dangerous job–without Kate's permission, since she had none to give–apparently has no weight. Kate's the heavy. She gets it. She'll shoulder a lot of the burden, but not all of it. What Alexis had said was cruel, not just to her, but worse, to Castle.

 _By the time Gram and I get back from Europe she probably won't be around any more, anyway._

OK, she tells herself as they drive silently through SoHo, prove to her that she's wrong. Not by making a promise, but simply by being there when Alexis comes home. Because unless Castle suddenly stops loving her, suddenly finds her boring, suddenly thinks she's unappealing–all of which seem unlikely–she'll be with him in midsummer. She'll be with him when they're old and gray; hell, she'll be with him when Alexis is old and gray.

There's something else she tells herself as they turn onto Broome Street. God knows she won't say it to Castle–to Burke maybe, probably, but to no one else. She's a woman, she's a detective, and she's in love, and she'd bet her badge (if she still had one) that Alexis is jealous of her. If it weren't nearly eleven o'clock at night she'd call Burke right now for an appointment. She might need two hours with him, not one.

 _By the time Gram and I get back from Europe she probably won't be around any more, anyway._

He parks the car in the garage beneath his building, and as they wait for the elevator and she squeezes his hand.

"You okay, Castle?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

They're probably both lying, but it's oddly comforting nonetheless.

He unlocks the front door and turns on the lights. Their eyes have hardly had time to adjust when the door opens behind them and Alexis comes in.

"Oh," all three say as one.

She feels the blood go to her cheeks and sees the same on Castle's daughter's.

"Hi, Alexis. Listen, um, about this morning." She hadn't intended to jump into the pool so quickly, but she had been taken by surprise. "I'm really sorry. I know that I shocked you and I wish that I hadn't. I have no excuse except that I was in sort of a daze. A happy daze, but a daze, and I just wasn't thinking. It was thoughtless of me to, you know, wander around the way I did. Not trespassing, since your father invited me in"–well, no, he hadn't. She'd hurled herself over the threshold. Never mind. "But I shouldn't have taken the liberty that I did in your home."

She stops, waiting for Alexis to take up the conversational thread. Not that this is a conversation, at least not yet. She hopes it's going to be more than an awkward monologue. The redhead, still not speaking, is carrying four shopping bags. If Kate could see any of the logos she might desperately comment on one of the stores, but she can't. So she waits.

"Alexis," Castle says. So help her, she'd forgotten that he was standing only a foot away. "Do you have something you'd like to say to K– to Detective Beckett?"

The room feels airless, but the shopping bags swing slightly from Alexis's wrist. "I'm sorry." Several seconds pass, resembling hours. "Sorry if I was rude."

Now there's a lot of air in the room, but it feels as though they're in a blast furnace. "That's it?" Castle asks, his question full of bite. "There's no 'if,' Alexis, you were rude."

"Sorry I was rude." The slight emphasis on "was" makes Kate wish that this had remained a monologue.

"Where is the woman she'd found earlier this evening, the woman who had finally become–but apparently only momentarily–the courageous person she'd thought she'd been but wasn't? The woman who had the bravery to tell Castle, more than once, "I'm yours"? The woman who would now radiate fearlessness in every aspect of her life, not just when looking into the barrel of a gun? Where had she gone? Is she in bed at home, with the covers pulled over her head? Is she cowering in Castle's car? The hell with this. She's summoning her now, commanding her to return. She straightens up and uses her eyes to pin Alexis in place.

"I can tell that you mistrust me, resent me," she begins, "and I wish that I knew how to set that right, but I don't. But I'm going to try. I make you this pledge, that I will never get between you and your father; no one should, and I won't. I've never known a father and daughter as close as the two of you. But despite what you may think, my feelings for him run deeper than they have for anyone, ever. And I'm as sure as I am that the Earth revolves around the sun that they're going to get even deeper. I'm very excited about that." She stops for breath, both literal and figurative. She's unused to talking this much. "I bring a lot of baggage into this relationship, but you know, so does he. We've had some rough times, far rougher than most people do, but here's the thing. We were colleagues before we were friends, and friends long before we were lovers, and that makes all the difference."

For whatever reason, she realizes that her hands are fisted at her sides. She opens them and tries to let go of everything, let her whole being relax. "I want to have a good relationship with you, Alexis. I want it to work, I want to do the work, but unless you want to push me aside, you have to do some, too. You told your father that I probably won't be around when you come back from your trip." She sees the pale eyelashes flutter over startled eyes. Alexis hadn't expected her to know. "I made him tell me so that I'd know what I'm up against, and he told me only after a long argument from me. And I have to say that you're wrong. I will be here. Maybe it was fair of you to say that about me, maybe not, but in my view what matters is that it was an incredibly hurtful thing to say to your father. Those are my words, not his." She looks down at her sandaled feet. She needs a pedicure. She shakes her head and looks up again. "I feel as if I've used up my allotment of words. I think we're all tired. I am, anyway. I'm going to bed." She turns and walks through the living room, through his office, through his bedroom, and into the bathroom. Her hand shakes as she closes the door, and when she slides to the cool, tiled floor all of her is trembling.

She feels sick. What in God's name has she done? Planted her flag in this loft, for one. As good as told Alexis that she belongs here, that she's moving in, all without any discussion. Just barging in. Fuck, why hadn't she thought this through? It's good to have guts; the T Rex had guts, but it also had a brain the size of a lima bean. She begins to feel dinosaur-like, brave but clumsy and dimwitted, and looks at the back of her hands as if they might sprout scales. She brings her knees up and presses her forehead against them. Her skin feels taut where it's pulling at the lacerations. It hurts. Good. Maybe it will hurt so much that it will blot any other thought that might be trying to bubble up.

There's a knock on the door, and light though it is it creates a vibration that she can feel in her elbow, which is resting against the jamb.

"Kate? Are you all right?"

Castle. For one horrifying moment she'd thought that it might be his daughter. "Not sure."

"May I come in?"

"Of course."

He swings the door open, closes it again, and looks at her. For the second time today she can't read his face. She must be slipping. Certainly her judgment has taken a hell of a tumble. He crouches next to her, pulls his knees up as she has, and slides his arm between the wall and her back until he can cup his hand around her shoulder. They sit that way for a few moments before he kisses her on the cheekbone and inhales. "You smell like Heaven," he says softly. "What I imagine Heaven must be."

"Not sure I'll ever go to Heaven, but I do kind of of wish I were dead. I'm so embarrassed. How can you even be staying here with me?"

"What?" He scoots around so that he's at a right angle to her. "Why are you embarrassed?"

She looks at him as if he were a madman. "You're kidding, right? You don't think I was, um, presumptuous? I practically said I was moving in here. To your house. And Alexis's."

"There's nothing I'd like more. Love more."

"Castle!"

"I'm serious."

"That's what scares me."

"Why? I don't want you to be scared of anything."

"Neither do I."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

She looks the other direction.

"Kate?"

All the emotion that he invests in her name compels her to turn back to him.

"Of making your daughter feel as though I've challenged her to a duel. Of making you think that's what I'm doing. And that I'm charging in here like Attila the Hun."

"Attila the Hun was hairy and smelly and nothing like you."

"I'm serious, Castle."

"I know you are. Kate, listen. You didn't challenge Alexis to anything except to examine what she did today. You gave her a lot, you know. More than she probably deserved, because I've given her too much leeway. She's a fantastic daughter, but she can't call all the shots, especially when it comes to the woman I love. She's going to come around. I know it."

"How do you know?"

"Because she may have only half my DNA, but what's more important is that she has spent her whole life with me. And I intend to spend the rest of mine with you."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for all the wonderful support. See you in 2019, if not before!


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

"Can't keep your hands off me, can you?"

She loves the muffled, cushiony quality of his voice when he's half awake. He's warm against her back, the best human spoon that she's ever experienced.

"I could say the same of you, Castle."

"That better not be a complaint."

"Not a complaint," she assures him, covering his hand with hers and sliding it up from her waist to her breast.

"Thought so."

And then it's a lot more than hands that they can't keep off each other.

"Good morning," she says afterwards, lying on his chest.

"Nope."

She feels his calf twitch, and rubs the arch of her foot over it. "Nope?"

"Not good, fantastic. Fantastic morning. As in fulfilling many of my fantasies."

"Mmmhmm." She lifts her head and inhales. "Speaking of fantastic, I smell coffee."

"Must be Alexis. Funny, cause she doesn't usually get up this early."

Oh. Alexis. There's a wake-up call she wishes that she'd missed. "What time is it?"

He reaches for his phone on the nightstand. "Huh," he says, surprised. "Not early. It's almost ten."

"Ten? I never sleep until ten."

"We weren't sleeping."

She can't help giggling, and she's glad of it as she thinks about the conversation ahead with Castle's daughter. She assumes there will be one, and she's dreading it. "Time to get up," she says, rolling over and letting her legs dangle over the side of the mattress.

When she comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he's still in bed, lying on his side and looking at her. "Beckett?"

"Yes?"

"You going to get coffee?"

"That's my plan, why?"

"Don't forget to put some clothes on."

She gives him a glare that's the unspoken equivalent of harrumph, and pulls on a striped sundress, one of a handful of items that she'd somehow had the wits to bring in a tote bag from her apartment yesterday. When she gets to the kitchen, she's taken aback by the sight of Alexis sitting there; she'd assumed that the girl would take her coffee upstairs to avoid having to speak to her.

"Morning, Alexis," she says, before pouring Jamaican Blue Mountain into two mugs. She thinks she might have heard a "morning" in response, but if so it's so faint that it's virtually inaudible. She can't very well just leave and go back to the bedroom; it's not polite, and Castle will ask if his daughter was there. What's a safe topic? She's desperate enough to settle for the obvious. "Did you sleep well?"

"Pretty much."

Kate takes a sip and looks directly at Alexis, daring her not to return the politeness, however trite. Finally, she reciprocates, just barely, with "You?"

"Like a baby," she says cheerfully. If babies had very passionate sex at midnight and again at nine in the morning, which they do not. She takes another sip and licks her bottom lip. "I love your father's coffee. He's spoiled me for anything else." Alexis looks as if she'd rather be anywhere else–a snakepit, Death Valley without water–but Kate is damned if she's letting her go now. Maybe it's the pheromones, maybe it's the caffeine, who knows, but her bravery has come rushing back. She feels much as she does in interrogation, completely in command, though what she's after here is not a confession, not even an apology, but some kind of acknowledgment, some accord. "I used to drink swill, before him. But things change." Pause. A pause that stretches like elastic in a cheap pair of sweatpants, until it eventually gives out. "Things change. You've changed enormously since I met you. You're old enough to drive, old enough to vote, old enough to go out on your own, old enough to make your own decisions."

She puts her mug down on the counter, turns around, and opens the refrigerator door. It's a ploy, of course, but it should work. She needs some time. What can she eat that's in here? There's a whole chicken, God knows how many kinds of cheese, carrots, fruit juices, milk, water, beer, eggs, bacon. Ah, grapes. They'll do. She removes the bowl that's holding a large bunch, turns around again, and sets it next to her coffee. She looks levelly at Alexis, who appears to be as set in place as the two-year-old box of spinach in her freezer.

"Your father has changed a lot in the last couple of years, too, don't you think? He was a playboy before he started working at the Twelfth. Told me he dated thousands of models, which I understand is an exaggeration, but still. He's fun, he's funny, but I see his serious side a lot more now. Contemplative, even. You've noticed, right?" This time she'll wait for a real response.

"I guess." Alexis shrugs, and a strand of her hair comes out of her ponytail. "Sort of."

Well, that's something. A little bit of a give. "The thing is, he's old enough to make his own decisions. You're his daughter, you're the most important person in his life. He'll always look out for you, but you're almost out of the house now. He doesn't have to protect you in the same way he has for all these years. He can make decisions about his own life in a way that he hasn't before, and for whatever his reasons, he's decided he wants to be with me. That's a change that I hope you can, if not embrace, at least be able to accept. I understand that it's not easy, because it's been just you and him for a long time."

She smiles faintly at the 18-year-old. "I've changed, too, you know, and it's all because of your dad. I never thought that I could trust anyone with my heart, and now I have. It's safe with him, my heart." Jesus, she needs to lie down. She feels as if she's run a marathon without training, in ratty old sneakers with no support. She closes her eyes and wonders if she can sleep standing up, like a horse.

"Detective Beckett?"

Her eyes open.

"Is Dad's heart safe with you?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

This time when she smiles, it's not faint or tentative, it's everything. "Surer than anything in my life."

"Okay." She looks at the wall for a while before returning Kate's gaze. "Then I'll trust you."

XXXXXX (Time jump to August)

She'd gotten her job back more than two months ago, making an explosive return that had enraged Captain Gates, but it had been worth it. In many ways it feels as if it happened a lifetime ago because her own life has changed so radically, and all for the better. Castle had come back to the precinct not long after she; they're still learning how to be partners on the job while also partners off it, which is a challenge but one they both love. With the help of Castle, she's learning how to keep Bracken from poisoning their lives. She's learning a lot, especially how to lock away some things while opening up to others.

Martha and Alexis had flown home in late June. When they'd picked them up at the airport she'd mentally sung Sondheim's brilliant "I'm Still Here," but was zealous about not letting it travel from her brain to her mouth. Her welcome from Martha has been even more loving than she'd hoped, and she and Alexis are on pretty solid ground, the air around them not yet warm but definitely improving. The redheads have decamped to the Hamptons for the summer, where Alexis is waitressing at a seafood restaurant. It had been her father's idea and strongly endorsed by her grandmother. "You'll learn a lot of important things that aren't on any syllabus at Columbia," Martha had said.

The weather forecast for the weekend had been dismal, so she and Castle had opted to stay in the city, where the constant rain has kept them happily indoors. It's Sunday morning: he'd gone out for cinnamon rolls and they'd had a wonderful, leisurely breakfast. "This is one of my desert island foods," he'd said, licking a bit of cinnamon sugar from his thumb. "I could not survive on said island without it. And you, of course."

"Glad I'm up there with a cinnamon roll."

Now they're lying with their heads at opposite ends of the sofa, sharing both it and _The Times_. She drops the sports section on the coffee table and looks at him, confident that it won't be long before he's aware of it. When his eyes rise to meet hers, she beams. "So do I, Castle."

He beams back. "I'm always happy when you agree with me, but so do you what?"

"It's something you said a while ago."

"What while ago?"

When she doesn't answer, he presses. "This morning? Last week? The Mesozoic Era?"

"May twenty-fourth."

"Ooh, that's precise." He lets the Book Review land next to Sports and gives her his full attention. "What time?"

"Nine minutes past eleven. PM."

"I was kidding when I asked, but really? You know the exact time?"

"Noticed it on your watch. You had your arm around my shoulder and your watch was right below my left eye."

"And?"

"And it said eleven-oh-nine."

"You're killing me here, Beckett." His arm shoots out; he wraps his hand around her bare ankle and pulls her down the sofa towards him.

"I'm shocked that the date doesn't resonate with you," she says. "And don't even think about tickling my foot."

"Guess I'll just go back to the paper, then," he says primly, so she digs her toes into his thigh. "Ouch."

"Castle? This is sort of important." She feels her nerve ebbing and hauls it back in. "It's definitely important. To me, anyway."

"I'm sorry. Go ahead. I want you to tell me all about 'So do I, Castle'."

"Okay. It was that night that I came back here to talk to Alexis. You know, the night after the morning she and your mother found me naked in the kitchen, mooning around."

"Of course you were mooning, you had no pants on."

"Castle!"

"I'm sorry. Really, I am. Just the thought of you naked in the kitchen makes my heart race."

"Fine. So, do you remember how I basically told your daughter that I was moving in here? Without ever having discussed it with you? We'd been together for only twenty-four hours."

"Technically. But I'd been with you in my head for a hell of a lot longer than that."

"I was so upset, and you sat down on the bathroom floor with me and said, 'I intend to spend the rest of my life with you'."

"I did. And I do."

She swallows hard, and is astonished to feel her eyes fill up. "Well, so do I, Castle. I intend to spend the rest of my life with you."

He lets go of her ankle and puts his hand on her cheek. "You do?" he asks, his voice full of wonder. "You do?"

"Yeah." A tear lands on the back of his hand.

"Hold on," he says, and sits up straight, shoving his hand into his pocket. He withdraws a small velvet pouch, and slides off the sofa onto one knee. He empties the little bag into the palm of his hand, then opens it and holds up whatever had been in there between his thumb and index finger. "Katherine Beckett, you are the only woman I have ever loved, will ever love, with all thirty-seven trillion cells in my body. Will you marry me?"

Her answer is immediate. "Yes. Yes. I will. I do, too. All thirty-seven trillion cells in my body." They kiss each other so hard that they almost topple on to the floor, and he pulls them back onto the sofa.

"Thirty-seven trillion cells, Castle?"

"Yes. I looked it up last week when I was watching you asleep in my office, and I couldn't believe how much I loved you. I wondered if it were quantifiable."

"Are you going to put the ring on my finger? I haven't even had a chance to look at it yet."

He slips it on, a platinum band set with three stones: a diamond in the middle, flanked by an emerald and a sapphire.

"My God, Castle. It's so beautiful. Thank you."

"The emerald is because in some light, especially low light, like when we're reading in bed, your eyes look green," he says, touching the jewel before he taps another. "And the sapphire is because my eyes are blue. Maybe one of our kids will have your eyes, and one mine." He kisses her again.

"It's perfect," she says. "But how come it was in your pocket?"

"I put it in there every morning when I get dressed. I've been doing that for almost a year."

"You have? But–."

"I know. I bought it last September, eleven months ago, the morning after we sat on the swings and you said you weren't going to be able to have the kind of relationship that you wanted until the wall that you'd built came down. That was the day I began to have hope. That was the day I decided that I would take down every one of those bricks myself, one by one, if I had to. No matter how long it took."

"You did, huh?"

"I did."

"You know what, Castle?"

"What?"

"There's nobody here but us. Your mother and Alexis won't be home until Wednesday."

"Right."

"So," she coos, wriggling into his lap. "Let's get naked."

He laughs, a deep, rolling wave of a laugh that washes over both of them. When he finally stops he asks, "In the kitchen?"

"For starters. The only thing I'm going to wear for the rest of the day is this ring."

 **A/N** That's the end of this tale, which started out as a two-shot and then, as is usually the case when I write, took off on its own. Thank you for staying with it and for being such warm and kind readers. Happy new year to you all. I hope to be back soon with another story.


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